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11.08.2006

See, I have always been opposed to that -- why shouldn't girls be able to say kaddish too in public (or according to some opinions at all)? It doesn't seem right

Why can’t we say Kadidsh without a Minyan?

Why can’t we say Kaddish outside of Davening?

Whatever "helps" about Kaddish is obviously not merely saying the words - but rather saying them in the exact way and manner, time and place, that the initiators of this custom (it is a Minhag, Kadish) understood according to their Kabbalistic understanding.

So we know that saying Kaddish outside of Davening, or without a Minyan doesn’t help. One of the things we know about Kaddish is that it is supposed to come from a man.

There is no way for us to understand on the surface how Kaddish even helps the deceased soul. Kaddish mentions nothing about death, souls, or deceased people. In fact, the halachah is that if there is no mourner to say the mourner's Kaddish in shul (after Aleinu) a non-mourner should say it, even if he has parents!

There is absolutely no reason why parents should object to their children saying Kaddish for someone (although if they do, and the Kaddish is not obligatory on the child, he should obey his parents' unreasonable demands). No damage can happen to someone if their children say Kaddish.

There are many, many, mistaken ideas about this tefilah. We do not understand why this particular tefilah said in this particular manner "works", but we trust those that created it. Part of the rules of Kaddish was that men must say it, not women. That rule, like all the rest of the rules of this Tefilah, was instituted by its originators.

So you are saying that it is okay for girls?

No. Kaddish is a minhag and the minhag is that women do not say Kaddish. If the originators of the minhag - and all the generations of Torah Jews - understood that it would be a good thing for women to say Kaddish, they would have instituted it that way.